"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made it tolerable, would have been about it still. A sicker man than Urquhart, who made a hard death for himself, would have given up the battle, thrown himself at James's feet and asked no quarter. Urquhart was not so far gone as that; a little bluster remained. He did it badly. He didn't mean to be brutal; he meant to be honest; but it sounded brutal, and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... a stranger in Arizona," said Jean, slowly. "I know little about ranchers or sheepmen. It's true my father sent for me. It's true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an' blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm goin' to do my best to ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... and self-reliant, named his terms to Castellani—a half-interest in the business—and Castellani, swear and bully and bluster as he might, must accept. This made Sampey a rich man at once. Castellani, exceedingly gracious and friendly after the signing of the compact, proposed a quiet supper in his private apartments in celebration of the new arrangement, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... just thinking! Thinking of a man whom I used to denounce as bad-tempered! A dear, kind, thoughtful, unselfish Englishman with a—a bluster! I can never call it temper again, after knowing Mr Travers! He has taught ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bluster." ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... is a vice inherent in our civilisation; but if the Press withdrew its subvention, his monopoly would be curtailed, and art would be recruited by new talent, at present submerged. Art would gradually withdraw from the bluster and boom of an arrogant commercialism, and would attain her olden dignity—that of a quiet handicraft. And in this great reformation only two classes would suffer—the art critics and the dealers. The ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... his blood! Moreover, he flattered himself that he had not begun to look old! Still, he was sensitive lest Carrissima should fancy he was making an ass of himself, and, as usual at such times, he began to bluster. ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... husbands; and we one day saw her take Okotook to task in a very masterly style for having bartered away a good jacket for an old useless pistol without powder or shot. He attempted at first to bluster in his turn, and with most women would probably have gained his point. But with Iligliuk this would not do; she saw at once the absurdity of his bargain, and insisted on his immediately cancelling it, which was accordingly ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... black bear is not usually a formidable opponent, and though he will sometimes charge home he is much more apt to bluster and bully than actually to come to close quarters. I myself have but once seen a man who had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian. He had come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and had mortally wounded it with his gun; it had then closed with him, knocking the gun out of ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... which as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes careering aimlessly among the mountains. It seemed, on ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... nature Can be given of the matter, Any more than for shapes or for different stature? If you love your dear selves, your religion or queen, Ye ought in good manners to be peaceable men: For nothing disgusts her Like making a bluster: And your making this riot, Is what she could cry at, Since all her concern's for our welfare and quiet. I would ask any man Of them all that maintain Their passive obedience With such mighty vehemence, That damn'd doctrine, I trow! What he means ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... of great storms is seldom heralded by any striking or unusual phenomenon. The real weather gods are free from brag and bluster; but the sham gods fill the sky with portentous signs and omens. I recall one 5th of March as a day that would have filled the ancient observers with dreadful forebodings. At ten o'clock the sun was attended ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... enjoy—should pay the tribute of our respect to those whose courage crowned us with sovereignty and made us masters of our fate; but we should not, as too often happens, make it the occasion for senseless bravado and foolish bluster. We should rather employ it to promote good will among the nations of the earth, to link together in a kindlier brotherhood the various families of the great Caucasian race, to beat the barbarous sword into peaceful plowshares and ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the cherry! O sweeter than the berry! O nymph more bright Than moonshine night, Like kidlings blithe and merry! Ripe as the melting luster; Yet hard to tame As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... was against him, and that any further hostility towards the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became pale and peaceful looking; the bluster departed from him; his body shrunk up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person through the solitude of ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... I, "don't keep me here all day. Hand me over the money, short, if you please!" for I was, you see, a little alarmed, and so determined to assume some extra bluster. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... intensely than on other earth. There was a wind blowing that was as salt as sea-winds are, yet travelled more mildly over the estuary land than it would have over the waves, like some old captain who from old age had come to live ashore and keeps the roll and bluster of his calling though he does no more than tell children ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... admit of question, and since the elements were beyond our control, there was no telling when relief would come. Until the weather moderated in the hills to the west, there was no hope of crossing the river; but men grew hungry and nights were chilly, and bluster and bravado brought neither food nor warmth. A third wave was noticed within an hour, raising the water-gauge over a foot. The South Fork of the Big Cheyenne almost encircled the entire Black Hills country, and with a hundred mountain affluents emptying in their tribute, ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... had scarcely begun his act when he became aware that indeed the storm was no usual blow and bluster, accompanied by rain. He could feel his trapeze swaying as the whole tent shook, and while this would not have deterred him from going on with his performance, he felt that an accident was likely to occur that would start ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give him a price for the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... leapt, but truth is unconsciously set at nought. We always allow for the words of some persons, for with them a scratch is a wound; a wind, a hurricane; one dollar, a thousand; and all they do in life, a big, big bluster. The only way to bring back English to a state of purity—for it has been outraged by slang, imitation, technical expressions, a straining after long words, and a regular system of exaggeration—is to speak simple words, using all necessary force and emphasis in the voice instead of in the ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... of Captain Falk's bluster and pretension, I was becoming more and more aware that the subtle Kipping could twist him around his little finger, and that for some end of his own Kipping did not wish affairs to come ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... drawn a special plea Has heard of old Tom Tewkesbury, Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard, He aim'd at wit, and bawl'd and bluster'd And died a Nisi Prius leader— That genius was my special pleader— That great man's office I attended, By Hawk and Buzzard recommended Attorneys both of wondrous skill, To pluck the goose and drive the quill. Three years I sat his smoky room in, Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consuming; The ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... a fearful storm, the heavens seem As if they would vent themselves in streams of fire; So thick the darkness which usurps the day, That one might see the stars. The angry winds Bluster and howl like spirits loosed from hell. The firm earth trembles, and the aged elms Groaning, bow down their venerable tops. Yet this terrific tumult, o'er our heads, Which teacheth gentleness to savage beasts, So that they ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... above, the earth below Roared aloud; that thunder'd, and this shook: Bluster'd the tempests strong; the whirlwinds blow; The bitter storm drove hailstones in his look; But yet his arm grew neither weak nor slow, Nor of that fury heed or care he took, Till low to earth the wounded tree down ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... pace or two, and came quite close to the screen. I cowered behind it in alarm. I could see he was terrified. For a minute or two you talked with him, and urged him to confess. Bit by bit, as you went on, he recovered his nerve, and began to bluster. He didn't deny what you said: he saw it was no use: he ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... exhausted the slender stock of evidence with which he had started. For a few minutes longer he tried by sheer bluster to conceal the poverty of the case, and last of all he handed one of Cobham's confessions to the Clerk of the Crown to be read in court. It entered into no particulars, which Cobham said their lordships must not expect from him, for he was so confounded that he had ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... intervening years that he was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The boy was more quick to sense than he was to analyze, and ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... followed after the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to be against ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... government of which the world has had experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny. Murmurs are already heard of armed resistance. These mutterings, we are told, are nothing but bluster. It is at any rate that sort of "bluster" at which the justice and humanity of a loyal Englishman must take alarm. I have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil war, nor to picture to myself without emotion ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... or publisher that I wish to portray him, but as an odd, lovable personality, possessed of so many interesting and peculiar and almost indescribable traits. Of all characters in fiction he perhaps most suggests Jack Falstaff, with his love of women, his bravado and bluster and his innate good nature and sympathy. Sympathy was really his outstanding characteristic, even more than humor, although the latter was always present. One might recite a thousand incidents of his generosity and out-of-hand charity, which contained no least thought of return or reward. I recall ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... in the coils of a trying situation. His own position, as he knew, was not formidable. Rita had reproached him over and over for infidelity. He began to swell and bluster at once. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the Quince mansion. 'Senator, I represent The Patriot.' 'Don't want to see you at all. Talk to my lawyer.' 'But he might not understand my errand. It relates to an indictment handed down in 1884 for malversasion of school funds.' 'Young man, do you dare to intimate—' and so forth and so on; bluster and bluff and threat. Says Ives, very cool: 'Let me have your denial in writing and we'll print it opposite the certified copy of the indictment.' The old boy begins to whimper; 'That's outlawed. It was all wrong, anyway.' ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rage, the Brigadier might bluster. Was I down-hearted? No! My spirit soared And dreamt of you and me with blended lustre Gracing some well-spread ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... his fiercest bluster could not drive that infantile smile from Hill's face, nor provoke a change in the calm slowness ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... him uncomfortable. The artist was reasserting the old superiority over him which the visitor had found so irritating, and it was Iron's instinct to meet this by an air of bluster. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... oath in the falsetto voice that the weak and the flabby possess and took one step forward. The man at the fire came to his feet and stood erect. He was tall, and the brown eyes talked for him better than threats or bluster. The vagrant shifted his gaze from those eyes ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... few days, my Father rode over to Andover, and sent for Griffith down to the Star Inn, to pay him his bill. Having expostulated with him upon his conduct to me, and his still more unfeeling conduct if possible to himself; Griffith chose to bluster and bully, upon which my father coolly turned him out of the room, telling him that his gown alone saved him from the chastisement that he merited; a privilege which the parson did not choose to waive. He, therefore sneaked off, in order to save himself from being either kicked or horse-whipped. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... wife was sitting, she excused herself to her conscience, for not telling him of the freedom she had taken, by thinking—It will do as well to tell him of it to-morrow: a few notes, out of such a parcel as he has in his desk locked up from me, can't signify; and he'll only bluster and bully when I do tell him of it; so let him find it out when ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... master, and being within an ace of qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,' interposed Ralph. 'I speak plainly, young man, bluster ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... this sudden apparition the man shrank back for a moment, but almost as quickly regained his bluster. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... my hand, and went downstairs to ask her, but on the way I got a little worked up because I did not quite dare to give them to the beggar myself. And the further I went down the steps, the more wrathful I got, until I stood over her. And then I was so angry that I had to bluster at her as if she had done me a grievous wrong. But she could not understand a word of what I said, and looked at me with such amazement, that I could not keep from ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... younger man blankly, "what a ridiculous old humbug it is! And how he used to frighten me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster! I rather think I will look him up: and I'll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Orangemen in Belfast as (apparently) bent on promoting animosity, and on convincing us that they will rather rush into civil war than endure a Parliament in Dublin supreme over all Ireland: but however much this may be suspected as the bluster and cunning of a minority in Ulster, to ignore it totally may be unjust as well as unwise. And besides, I think that Ireland needs the practice of Local Government, varying locally, before that of a Central ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... papers back!" repeated Hildegarde sternly, with a sudden light in her gray eyes which made the rascal step backward and thrust the papers hurriedly into the drawer. After which he began to bluster, as is the manner of cowards. "Pooty thing, city gals comin' hectorin' round with their ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... our own government; we must have no false notions about national "honor" such as were once held concerning personal "honor" in the days of dueling. We shall doubtless be in the wrong sometimes; we must welcome enlightenment and try to learn the better way. Apologizing is sometimes nobler than bluster; and he is no true lover of his country who seeks to condone, and so perpetuate, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... should offer some impertinence to her father which the veteran's honour might not brook. However, there was something in the old soldier's dignity and long service that kept the arrogance of the younger man in check, and repressed all bluster towards him. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any other. They differ widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;—built, in both cases, on what the old Marquis calls a fond gaillard. By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too is veracity and sense, power of true insight, superiority of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight into some object or other: so do both these men speak. The ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... calling Himself 'the Son of God'—was not a crime known to Roman law, and to allege it would probably have ended in the whole matter being scornfully dismissed. So they stood on their dignity and tried to bluster. 'We have condemned Him; that is enough. We look to you to carry out the sentence at our bidding.' So the 'ecclesiastical authority' has often said to the 'secular arm' since then, and unfortunately the civil authority has not always been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... call him a liar when told that every dollar was burned. Then he sought to pick a fight with Hunt, who had, as he expressed it, "roped him like a steer," but the carload by this time had had too much of his bluster and made common ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... collapse became more general, however, it became more and more evident to intelligent statesmen that it was more a hatred of Castle rule than a love of German rule that had been at the bottom of it all, and that it had been, in spite of the bluster of foreign alliance, more an armed protest against a domestic state of affairs than a real attempt to sever the Imperial link; nevertheless, the latter idea still survived in the minds of the military authorities, who could see in it nothing else, with the disastrous results that only ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a—a grandmother." Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're getting this dead wrong, Barry. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... you," retorted Flint, "that if you attempt to leave this room, I will give you into custody at once, and transport you, whatever may be the consequence to others. Come, come, let us have no more nonsense or bluster. We have strong reasons for believing that the story by which you have been extorting money, is a fabrication. If it be so, rely upon it we shall detect and punish you. Your only safe course is to make a clean breast of it whilst there is yet time. Out with it, man, at once, and ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... affair of style, I have endeavored neither to creep nor to bluster, for no author is so likely to betray his translator into both these faults, as HOMER, though himself never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which, persons ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... had come to bluster, was a bit nonplussed, even a bit abashed by the superb and easy manner of the man. Never in her life had she been privileged, indeed, to meet with a reception so graceful and so courteous. Could she, after all, be wrong? Here, at last, in ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... matter. That was nature. A man, with all of his bluster, cannot get away from nature. Don't the winters freeze and kill him? Doesn't water drown him, fire burn him? Love had no place in nature; hatred was a part of the one law, the primal law. The wolf kills the rabbit in hot rage; the black ant tears down the soft-bodied caterpillar ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... meet socially. I can hear a host saying "Shake hands with the Captain." One quite loses his taste for dinner parties. There is a sabre cut across the Captain's cheek. He is even more disreputable in appearance than his followers, with a bluster ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... with brag, bluster, pomposity, cheap wit, and insincerity, served him as a magnificent foil. Never again were wind and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... rid them in future of this "superfluous swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after hitting out and about at the Essay for three months he left it much as he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity. There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you have done that which was never done before; ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There were blotches of purple red and spaces of pallor on his face; his hands twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his collar limp. His words were a stammering mixture of bluster and appeal. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... has taken advantage of that over- loyalty to betray the North. "We have worked for them, and fought for them, and paid for them," says the North. "By our labor we have raised their indolence to a par with our energy. While we have worked like men, we have allowed them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our bosom, and now they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that this is so. England, above all, must see it, and, seeing it, should speak out her true opinion." The North ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... sixpence is sure, at last, to sell most bread. A man may puff up his loaves to a great size, by chemical agents, and so deceive the public for a time; another may catch the crowd for a time by the splendor of his gilt sheaf, the magnitude of his signs, and the bluster of his advertising; and the intrinsically best baker may be kept down, for a time, by want of tact, or capital, or some personal defect. But let the competition last thirty years! The gilt sheaf fades, the cavities in the big loaf are observed; but the ugly little man round the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... when Macdonald first came, and tried to "throw a holy scare into him," as he put it. The old formula did not work in the case of the lean, long-jawed, bony-chinned man. He was polite, but obdurate, and his quick gray eyes seemed to read to their inner process of bluff and bluster as through tissue paper before a lamp. When they had tried to flash their guns on him, the climax of their play, he had beaten them to it. Two of them were carried back to the big ranchhouse in blankets, with bullets through their fleshy parts—not ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... notary, and if a single day passes without his seeing me he has orders to break the seal and make the contents public. So you see chance is still on my side. But now that you are warned there is no need for me to bluster. I am quite prepared to acknowledge your superior rank, and if you insist upon it, to speak to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... We-ell, now, I have knowed it to storm, and storm hard, after this time uh year. But comin' the way she did last fall, 'n' all this here wind 'n' bluster 'n' snowin' on the Zandias and never comin' no further down, I calc'late the chances is slim, boy—'n' gittin' slimmer every ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... power tone is lacking. In the first case you will need to reply with considerable force, whether you appeal to the mind or the heart of the prospect. But when his objection is stated in a powerless tone, even though it may be accompanied by curtness or bluster, you need not waste much force on your answering appeal to his ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... tremendous bluster for two days the weather has become beautifully fine, and I find the climate here more invigorating than that of the main island. It is Japan, but yet there is a difference somehow. When the mists lift they reveal not mountains smothered ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... most obviously shows itself. His book is an orgy of words; they pour out helter-skelter, wildly, into swirling sentences and huge catalogues that, in serried columns, overflow the page. Not quite wildly, though; for, amid all the rush and bluster, there is a powerful underlying art. The rhythms of this extraordinary prose are long and complex, but they exist; and they are controlled with the absolute skill ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... some outer skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strives to render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are done. Such philosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon-Gospels, the ultimate Evangel of the World; be believed, with what is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kind of shallow satisfaction real in its way:—but they are ominous gospels! They are the sure, and even swift, forerunner of great changes. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dying and fallen into dotage, when it begins to rave in that fashion. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison will be spoiled!" shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his shout. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... from the others, resentful of the distrust that Taterleg had shown, but more than half of his courage and bluster taken away from him with his gun. He was swearing more volubly than ever to cover his other deficiencies; but he was a man to be feared only when he had his weapon under ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... said Pen, laughing, as he nursed his leg, which reminded him of his wound from time to time. "But I don't believe it. It's only bluster and brag, of which I think our fellows ought to be ashamed. Why, you've more than once seen the French soldiers ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... law of election in really representative governments which are truly free; the majority of electors returns the majority to the government; and rightly so. Of course, there is room here, particularly where the majority happens to be Irish, for a vast quantity of frothy bluster about drilled and intimidated voters, and all that sort of thing. With that we have no concern at present, and merely remark en passant that it is a pity a little more of it was not wasted on the recent ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... those Americans who insist at all times and under all circumstances that he is as good as any man, simply because in his heart of hearts he knows that he is not, but hopes by this bluster to deceive the world. On the contrary, he was a firm advocate of an aristocratic form of government, and did not hesitate to say that he considered the Declaration of Independence, wherein it refers to the absolute equality of man, ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... nation when we ignore the very disadvantages that militate against true nationalism. We bluster about national sentiment and spend our money on paying to have ourselves Americanized. When we are tired trying to explain that, we fall back into dithyrambics on the Old Flag and the great ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... disappeared. Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage, perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance. At all events, she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... that he loves her best," said Mr. Mount, snuff-taking in graceful Court fashion, "for he hath loved a dozen since; but she is a shrew, and can rave and bluster at him till he would hang her with jewels, and give her his crown itself to quieten her furies. 'Tis the pretty orange wench and actor woman Nell Gwynne who will please him longest, for she is a good-humoured baggage and witty, and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of men, especially of Frenchmen, never cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind to design an authentic ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... poor a critic As an honest friend: you stroke me on one cheek, Buffet the other. Come, you bluster, Antony! You know I know all this. I must not move Until I hear from Carew and the Duke. I fear the mine ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and bluster, the building and destruction, the teasing and torture so often perpetrated by the boy. He is saying that he is here and must be reckoned with, and he wishes to make his presence as significant as possible. If home, school, and community conditions are such as to give healthful ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... bullying villains they are; they will torment a weak woman for months together, but will fly in cowardly terror the moment you turn upon them in righteous anger! I should just laugh at them, but I would drive them out, hold not a moment's parley with them. Of course, they will bluster and show fight, because you have let them have their own way for so long that they will not tamely submit to expulsion; but face them with iron determination, set your will against them like an immovable rock, and down they will go. Say to them: 'I am a spark of the ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... Foix, the victor of Ravenna, had perished in the hour of his victory, Pope Julius II. died at Rome at the very moment when he seemed invited to enjoy all the triumph of his policy. He died without bluster and without disquietude, disavowing nought of his past life, and relinquishing none of his designs as to the future. He had been impassioned and skilful in the employment of moral force, whereby alone he could become master of material forces; a rare order of genius, and one ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... try to grab you?" asked Bumpus, with a tremor in his voice that he tried in vain to conceal by a great show of assumed bluster. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... Kenton's tongue to say that it was a good thing for him Dick was not there. But partly the sense that this would be unbecoming bluster, and partly the suffocating resentment of the fellow's impudence, limited his response to a formless gasp, and Bittridge went on: "But I'm glad to find you here, judge. I didn't know that you were in town. Family all well in New York?" He was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had been and there was a different look in his eye. Jed's rough handling had not frightened him, but the Major's cold, incisive tones and the threat of a term in prison had their effect. Nevertheless he could still bluster. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... You must not lose it," the tradesman would bluster. Or "Your expenses are too much. You are eaten up with expenses," he would insist. "You don't see how you can reduce them? Do with less help, my good lady. What do people do who can't afford help? ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... ignore this and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, We may foam at the mouth; we may tear down Heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize ourselves and others with the opiate of Christian resignation; we may dissolve the realities of human ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... Have you read the Kaiser's speeches? If you have not a copy, I advise you to buy it; they will soon be out of print, and you won't have any more of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist—its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour—the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree that bore it. In vain the world over, Seek her match may the rover; A shaft, thy poor lover, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and confident. There was no self-assurance or bluster about it, and yet it was convincing. She ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and his tones were firm, with no bluster nor bluff in them, "we came out here to find Tom Swift, and were going to find him! We have reason to believe he's here—at least, he started for here," he substituted, as he wished to make no statement he could not prove. "Now we don't claim we have any right to be on your property, ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... "No, no, Jack, bluster won't do with me. I was an officer in Chicago before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago crook when ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... place of voting, on the prairie, and hitched their horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... forgot to tell you that Monsieur Popinot was named minister of commerce yesterday. Why shouldn't I be ambitious too? Ha! ha! I could easily pick up the jargon of those fellows who talk in the chamber, and bluster with the rest of them. Now, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of a bluster roars behind the fireboard. A door has slammed above stairs. A window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and how ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... watchfulness of Senators Doane, Coon, Smith, White, Dinsmore, Harrington and Tefft carried the bill through the bluster of the minority to its final vote; by twenty-two for to eight against.[469] When Senator Howe's name was called he offered the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... came Taug, warily and with many pauses and much bluster, and still behind him came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering their uncanny challenges. Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of Kerchak advancing ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Richard, compelling him to stand up; "it beseems not that knees which are so frequently bended to the Deity should press the ground in honour of man. What danger awaits us, reverend father? and when stood the power of England so low that the noisy bluster of this new-made Duke's displeasure should alarm ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind begins to bluster round the corners, and roar along the chimney-stacks, straight becomes cross, petulant, and irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale? Yet thunder will sour ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... guillotine. England is at war with us, there is nothing therefore further to fear from her. We might hang every Englishman we can lay hands on, and England could do no more than she is doing at the present moment: bombard our ports, bluster and threaten, join hands with Flanders, and Austria and Sardinia, and the devil if ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... equivalent to which in English would probably be "Hectoring" It is curious that the French should have taken the name of Achilles and we that of Hector to express the same idea of arrogance and bluster.—Ed. ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... image in my thought this ideal. These quiet ships lying in the river have no suggestion of bluster about them—no intimation of aggression. They are commanded by men thoughtful of the duty of citizens as well as the duty of officers—men acquainted with the traditions of the great service to which they belong—men who know by touch with the people of the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... well-informed Canadians knew at the time. The troublesome question was settled; the time-honored friendship of two great peoples had suffered no interruption; and Roosevelt had secured for his country its just due, without public parade or bluster, by ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... republican institutions. And it is time the traitors of the South should know that the Free States are becoming every day more united in sentiment and more earnest in resolve, and that, so soon as they are thoroughly satisfied that secession is something more than empty bluster, a public spirit will be aroused that will be content with no half-measures, and which no ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... quiet, slow soft spon, he occasionally gives some directions about the cooking to the negroes and to the white soldiers detailed to cook. He is nothing of a hustler, but he has directed negroes from his boyhood up and is as efficient a "boss cook" as the army contained without any bluster. Six or eight feet in front of him, a big hickory oak fire, say ten feet long, with glowing coals under the logs, skillets, ovens and pots all occupied in baking bread or boiling beef under the hands of the negro men, who delighted in the work and joke and grin and ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... regarded him as a very strange boy; but that was only because he was a little out of his element. He would have preferred to be among men who did not bluster and swear; but, in spite of them, he had the courage and the fortitude to be true to himself. The little angel still maintained her ascendency ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... tell them, and then they began to threaten and bluster. I was beginning to get frightened, but I made up my mind I wouldn't give in to them. And then—well, you came along, and I guess I never was so glad to see you, Jack! But, of course, they really did me no harm. How did it happen that you got ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... Master Justice! Master Arthur! Master Lusam! wonder not why I thus blow and bluster; my mistress is dead! dead is my mistress! and therefore hang yourselves. O, my ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... fight with the workers. Baron Stumm, a factory king possessed of great influence with the Kaiser, had inspired him with hatred against industrial workers, just as others had inspired him with love for them at the beginning of his reign. With all his swagger and bluster, William II is more a creature of impulse than of constancy. All parties united to oppose his scheme, except those who are known in every Parliament as Mamelukes. The former "Father" of the working classes, suddenly become their enemy, has experienced a personal defeat ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Mexico; says yet that papa robbed him, but he knows as well as you or I that all his bluster was because he only found half that he expected; I pride myself on getting ahead of a wicked man once, thanks to our hero, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... it was not only in Eastern Europe that his saving influence was felt. In Africa and India, and wherever British honor was involved, he was the resolute and unsparing enemy of that odious system of bluster and swagger and might against right, on which Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... toward himself—nay, because of it; it was impossible to use the weapon that a former kindness had placed in his hand. He looked at Leverich now with an expression which the latter quieted himself to meet. This was a situation, not for bluster and rage, but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... immediately received. He had, in fact, obeyed in such haste that he found two in the audience-chamber instead of one. With Philip of France was Conrad of Montferrat, a large, pale, ruminating Italian, full of bluster and thick blood. The French King was a youth, just the age of Jehane, of the thin, sharp, black-and-white mould into which had run the dregs of Capet. He was smooth-faced like a girl, and had no need to ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... to have written the letter, and if I could only have been sure Wallop's threat was mere idle bluster ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the little man trembled. No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the supremacy of that graceful motion and that ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... no bluster in these resolutions, but their meaning was apparent enough, and the city authorities understood it. From that hall, next morning, would march at least five or six thousand determined men, and if the mob rallied in force, to repeat the action ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... but wut half on 't is lies; For who'd thought the North wuz agoin' to rise, Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a stump, 'thout 'twuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez Gabr'el's las' trump? Or who'd ha' supposed, arter sech swell an' bluster 'bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they'd muster, Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez op'lent 'z you please In a primitive furrest ol femmily-trees,— 70 Who'd ha' thought thet them Southuners ever ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... heard of Turgot's appointment, wrote to a friend in France as follows: "So Turgot is controller general! He will not remain in office long enough to carry out his plans. He will punish some scoundrels; he will bluster about and lose his temper; he will be anxious to do good, but will run against obstacles and rogues at every turn. Public credit will fall; he will be detested; it will be said that he is not fitted for his task. Enthusiasm will cool; he will retire or be ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... well-bred dogs without a chance to see the demon which we have buried in their breasts, as we have in our own, beneath a host of civilizing influences. It is rare indeed in our day that a dog, unless insane, will bite a human being. The most of their assaults are pure bluster, mere pretence of fury, as is shown by the fact that if, carried away by their pretence, they are led to use their teeth, it is usually a mere sham assault, having no semblance of the effectiveness of ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... superintendent in an odd, uncomfortable tone, with the hint of "bluster" still in it. Win fancied she heard him add: "What salary?" In any case, the girl mentioned the sum of eight dollars, and at the same time scribbled something on a printed paper form ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... scold at any one; also to bluster, bounce, ding, or swagger. A captain huff; a noted bully. To stand the huff; to be answerable for the reckoning ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... incredulous amazement. He wiped his glasses and read it again. And then without consultation with a single human being, and without a moment's hesitation he wrote a brief reply to the great man and his generous offer. There was no bluster, no wrath, no demand for an apology to his insulted dignity, but in the simplest and friendliest and most direct language he informed his Secretary that if a dictator were needed to save the country he would undertake the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... ACT OF AUTHORITY.—The storm of excitement that may make the child start, bears no relation to actual obedience. The inner firmness, that sees and feels a moral conviction and expects obedience, is only disguised and defeated by bluster. The more calm and direct it is, the greater certainty it ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... frugal where there was any probability of considerable gain; but on the contrary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard labour, when they came to have plenty would extravagantly squander away their time and money in drinking and making a bluster." Indeed it is a melancholy proof how strangely power warps the minds of ordinary men, that there can be a doubt on this subject among persons who have been themselves educated. It tempts a suspicion that, unknown to themselves, they find a comfort in the thought, that their inferiors ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... theatres was present. He was on the lookout for something that might be got up as a prodigy. The theatre, it seems, was in desperate condition—nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the agent ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... hospitality by endeavoring to use Canada as a base for border raids. Yet in the smaller towns and in the country sympathy was decidedly on the other side, particularly after the "Herald" had ceased its campaign of bluster and after Lincoln's proclamation had brought the moral issue again to the fore. The fact that a large number of Canadians, popularly set at forty thousand, enlisted in the Northern armies, is to be explained in part by the call of adventure and the lure of high bounties, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... "Don't bluster, son, or I shall grow peevish," Hood replied tolerantly. "At the present moment I feel like taking a walk under the mystical May stars. The night invites the soul to meditation; the stars may have the answer ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... (HEINEMANN), a series of lectures developing phases of the argument of the Great Illusion, Mr. NORMAN ANGELL incidentally deals with this greengrocery business. Nobody with knowledge of his shrewd and vigorous method will be surprised that without bluster or rhetoric he establishes a very clear verdict of acquittal. One has always the impression that the rationalist in him is deliberately repressing the mystic, lest his case be weakened by a suspicion of sentimentalism. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... the monk; "nothing is lost by patience. See how long it takes the good Lord to make a fair flower out of a little seed; and He does all quietly, without bluster. Wait on Him a little in peacefulness and prayer, and see what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... to inquiries from the Massachusetts legislature as to whether the Southern attitude was "bluster" or "firm Resolve", Winthrop wrote, "the country has never been in more serious exigency than at present". "The South is angry, mad." "The Union must be saved... by prudence and forbearance." "Most ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... Sir Felix, walking out of the room with much fraternal bluster. Then he went forth, and at once had himself driven to Paul Montague's lodgings. Had Hetta not been foolish enough to remind him of his duty, he would not now have undertaken the task. He too, no doubt, remembered as he went that duels were things of the past, and that even fists and ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... bluster and blaspheme in his usual way; but he didn't. He listened in silence. Then he rose and put his hands on the ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke
... "We're speaking of business. And there's sma-all friendship atween me and Gourlay. He was nebby owre a bill I sent in the other day; and I'm getting tired of his bluster. Besides, there's little more to be made of him. Gourlay's bye wi't. But you're a rising man, Mr. Wilson, and I think that you and me might work thegither to our own advantage, don't ye see? Yes; just so; to the advantage ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to look for the swag he had thrown down, or the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... which he delivered this speech had an almost magical effect upon the jealous Latin. His bluster sank suddenly and died. Muttering to himself and staring at Berry as at a wizard, he seized the girl by the arm and started to move rapidly away, wide-eyed and ill at ease.... With suppressed excitement and the tail of my eye, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... and sorry and ashamed, because of the futile bustle and bluster and cheerful courageous activity about her. Not a cheek had blenched; not a hand had trembled; not a voice had been lifted to protest or counsel surrender, despite their meagre capacities for defense and their number, but a handful. What would these men say ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... result of August's mischief-making, her brother or someone one evening rode up to the cottage, drunk and inclined to bluster. He was accompanied by a friend, also drunk, who came to see the fun, and was ready to use his influence on the winning side. The teacher went inside, brought out his gun, and slipped two cartridges in. "I've had enough of this," he said. "Now then, be off, you insolent blackguards, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... about twenty-five years of age entered from the bluster of the storm. As Susannah was trying to push out past him into its fury, he ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... regular clap-trap: Don't bluster any more. Now DO be cool and take a nap! Such a ridiculous old chap ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... course gave a clear decision, not in the English way of compromise, which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest man deciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour of the Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt to appeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priory gate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied by an interdict upon Lewes, and things were ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... was natural, sometimes lost patience with the old woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster about and ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their disagreements, and finally induced them to kiss and be friends ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... muster Here at the call of the old battle days: Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster: All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze: Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre, Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell, With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor, And dreams of a charge and the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... designs with friendly demonstrations, and in a time of profound peace surprised the quiet town of New Amsterdam with a hostile fleet and land force and a peremptory demand for surrender. The only hindrance interposed was a few hours of vain and angry bluster from Stuyvesant. The indifference of the Dutch republic, which had from the beginning refused its colony any promise of protection, and the sordid despotism of the Company, and the arrogant contempt of popular rights manifested by its governors, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... recognized and defended by those European powers. On the other hand, the Northern people did not believe that the South would dare to fight for slavery when it had 4,000,000 slaves exposed to the chances of war. They thought it to be all bluster, and hence paid little heed to the threat of secession or of war. Both sides sadly learned their ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... [Pausing on his way to the telephone and addressing PHILIP with an evil expression.] You were always a bully and a blusterer, Mackworth; but, take my word for it, if you fancy you can bully Mr. Dunning, and bluster to my family, with any satisfactory results to ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the stream was there anywhere sign of timber. Foliage, of course, there was none. Cottonwood and willow in favored nooks along the Platte were just beginning to shoot forth their tiny pea-green tendrils in answer to the caressing touch of the May-day sunshine. April had been a month of storm and bluster and huge, wanton wastes of snow, whirling and drifting down from the bleak range that veiled the valley of the Laramie from the rays of the westering sun; and any one who chose to stroll out from the fort and climb the gentle slope to the ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... north winds their forces muster, And ruin rides high on the storm, All calm, in the midst of their bluster, He stands with his forehead enorm. When block on block, With thundering shock, Comes hurtled confusedly down, No whit recks he, But laughs to shake free The dust ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... worst, push each other from side to side, and shout lustily for the police; and squalling women, and chattering men, and ignorant country people, and elegant mercers' apprentices, and gay-mannered grocers, hustle, and scream, and swear, and lecture, and threaten, and bluster—but not a single blow! The guardian of the public peace appears, and the combatants evanish into thin air; and in a few minutes after this dreadful melee, the violin strikes up a fresh waltz, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... a long sloping roof, and as black as the church, stands on the opposite side of the road, with its barns; and these are all the buildings in sight of the railroad station. On the Concord rail, in the train of cars, with the locomotive puffing, and blowing off its steam, and making a great bluster in that lonely place, while along the other railroad stretches the desolate track, with the withered weeds growing up betwixt the two lines of iron, all so desolate. And anon you hear a low thunder running along these iron rails; it grows louder; an object is seen afar off; it approaches ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they were in the right? There was Cotton Mather, the holy man, the champion against the Evil One, the saint who walked with God, and daily lifted up his voice in prayer and defiance and thanksgiving—he was ever at hand, to cross-question, to insinuate, to surmise, to bluster, to interpret, to terrify, to perplex, to vociferate: surely, this paragon of learning and virtue must know more about the devil than any mere layman could pretend to know; and they must accept his assurance and guidance. "I stake my reputation," ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... fight than in being too willing. Once roused, they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the sufferers from his troubles. He removes Polja confidently enough from her surroundings—but only leaves the greater darkness behind him. Even he is as yet unable to transform the conditions of life—and he is therefore stigmatised by a little of the Russian bluster. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... duty Gen. Meade was inflexible, and would not stand any bluff or bluster from the Fenian leaders. On the contrary, he became very aggressive in compelling them to respect the laws and authority of the United States, and largely through his firmness and stern efforts the whole Fenian campaign ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... strong party forming in the South, whether they attain to a majority or not, and this party will be the germ of disaster to the secessionists. There are men enough, even in South Carolina, who would gladly be paid for their slaves, and these men, while maintaining secession views in full bluster, would readily enough find some indirect means of realizing money on their chattels. It may work gradually—but it will work. As disaster and poverty increase in the South, there will increase with them the number of those who will see ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... there are foolish people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was carried down in the rush, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... sextile, square, and trine, and opposite, Of noxious efficacy, and when to join In synod unbenign; and taught the fixed Their influence malignant when to shower, Which of them rising with the sun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous: To the winds they set Their corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll With terrour through the dark aereal hall. Some say, he bid his Angels turn ascanse The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more, From the sun's axle; they with labour pushed Oblique the centrick globe: Some say, the ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... Sewer, which had begun to blackguard The Blunder and Bluster's correspondent while he remained under the shelter of his pseudonym, now that his name was known, came out with double virulence, and filled half a sheet with filthy abuse of Harry, including collateral assaults ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... you, you certainly went in at the back door to do it," he said. Madeira's God-bless-you's and God-love-you's were valuable crutches to his conversation. With them and his bluster he seemed able to cover a great ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... "For myself, two centuries have been spent in my family to teach me to love like a gentleman, and to deserve you like a man. What does this young man need? A few days of bluster, of assertion! A few weeks of gaming and of roistering, of self-asserted claims! Gad! Lady Catharine, this is passing bitter! And now you ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough |
